


You'll Be The Moon

by Revan93



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Enslaved: Odyssey To The West - Freeform, M/M, Robots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4842398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revan93/pseuds/Revan93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>150 Years After The Great War</b>:</p><p>Cities are overgrown and overrun by mechs, leftover soldiers that humans had originally used against one another, before they turned on their creators.  What's left of mankind has retreated to the wilds, forming into small communities or living entirely alone.  Derek Hale is one such hermit, hunting the mountains of Upstate New York, until Stiles Stilinski turns up in his woods.</p><p>Trailed by mechs but with a mind for technology, Stiles forces Derek to become his personal bodyguard and help him track down Stiles' enslaved father.  A coastal journey through the skeleton of a decaying world brings them closer to one another, and closer to the truth of why slavers are truly gathering up the last remnants of humanity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on and follows the general plot of _Enslaved: Odyssey to the West_ (for now), a video game from 2010 that's based on (originally!) the 16th century Chinese novel _Journey to the West_. I'd been trying for a while to think of a fic I could write, and replaying _Enslaved_ got the inspiration flowing! For anyone familiar with the game's characters, Derek is Monkey and Stiles is a gender-flipped Trip.
> 
> This is my first fic, and I have no clue what the metal-steel ratio of robots is, or how exactly intensified global warming would change the Earth's climate. Not quite sure yet whether things will get explicit, but I'm open to any and all criticism / suggestions.
> 
> <3 Thank you so much for stopping by, can't wait to write some dystopian Sterek angst <3  
> 

**New York, 150 Years Later**

The cities kept their skeletons, plants spindling themselves around and miming the shapes of those steel buildings that’d survived the bombs. But here, in the mountains, nature had taken everything back. Homes were dilapidated, rotten wood collapsing beneath vines and trees and layers of moss: skin of the earth, growing over the old world’s corpse and burying it, steadily.

These rural landscapes were safer. Mechs kept to cities for the most part, the final sites of the battles they’d fought - for humans at first, then against them. But even if the cities were empty, and all their supplies free for the scavenging, Derek would still prefer these northern wilds. He’d grown up here, learned to hunt and forage and climb like an animal; he took comfort in the fact that nature renewed itself, because however useful the city goods might be, they’d all be gone eventually, just like the people that’d made them.

He wasn’t a technology snub, not entirely, but only used devices that made him a better hunter and could be refueled by the sun: his gloves, whose retractable claws dug just as easily into stone and bark as they did animal flesh; and the self-purifying canteen, with its heat-filter that ensured safe drinking water, even if rain or a lack of kindling made fire impossible.

There was the motorcycle, his one extravagance, buried away in his sister Cora’s room, but he hadn’t used it since she’d died. He told himself he didn’t miss the feeling of it, humming beneath him.

*

Derek lived on the side of a mountain, in a cave system he assumed had once been an emergency shelter. When he and Cora had first found the place, it’d been filled with empty ration canisters and a few living essentials: sleeping bags, a buried cache of Vita-Vials. They’d kept the medicine, cleared the rest out, and designated the coldest cavern they could find as a meat locker. Whether the caves’ original inhabitants had returned to the city or been captured by slavers was anyone’s guess.

They’d been so young then, Derek ten and Cora eight, fresh off a mech attack that’d killed the rest of their family. Their uncle Peter had been the last one standing, leading them farther and farther away from the city, a dwindling group of mechs on their tail for the whole long journey north. There’d been one left when they finally reached the mountains, and Peter had died finishing it off. Three days later they’d found the caves, and that’s when Derek’s life as a hunter had begun.

*

The fawn’s body was light, bouncing against his back as he trekked uphill. Half a mile more and he’d be home, free to skin the animal and carve whatever meat he could from its bones. There’d been two of them, twins, mother vanished or out of sight, and Derek had easily spotted their white-dappled fur through the trees. The second one had leapt off when its sibling fell, before he could nock another arrow.

The cave was dark, entrance concealed by an overhang of roots that left enough space on either side for one person to slide through. Derek turned sideways, chest to stone with the fawn and his bow grazing the roots, and stepped into the antechamber. He blinked a few times, eyes adjusting while his skin welcomed the drop in temperature.

Able to make out the walls now - rough and slightly damp as always - he crossed the small room to the caves’ first tunnel, which went a solid fifteen feet before breaking off into two diagonal paths: one to the right, one to the left. He turned left, walked a short distance and emerged into a cave that was five times the size of the first, ovular with a water-carved chimney at its center and three more tunnels branching off its far end.

All those years ago, he and Cora had decided to leave the antechamber empty: a few minutes’ notice, if mechs or slavers ever discovered the place.

The chimney filled the space with light, illuminating the fire pit directly beneath it and the pile of furs he often slept on, when he tended the fire late into the night and couldn’t be bothered to move to his “bedroom”: the smallest nook he’d been able to find, carved out at the back of the far center tunnel. Cora’d always made fun of him for his choice, having claimed the largest cavern as her own sleeping quarters. That’s where the motorcycle was now, along with everything else he tried not to think about.

He slung the fawn off his back and lay it on the floor, followed by his bow. He unclipped the gloves from his belt, unused for the day, and placed them at the edge of the fire pit. Against the left wall an axe was propped, and beside the axe a pile of sticks and chopped logs. He’d get a fire started, then bring the fawn back to the slaughter cavern. By the time it was cleaned and cut, there’d be a blaze warming his home against the caves' natural chill.

*

His forearms were covered in blood, the rest of him a light sweat, and the fawn had yielded just as little meat as he’d expected it to. Still, he carried his takings from the slaughter cavern to the meat locker, wrapped each cut of meat in torn segments of plastic tarp or thick cloth, and hung them from metal spikes he and Cora had salvaged from a local railroad before hammering them into the ceiling.

Back to the fire pit, which had come to life: flames scattering haphazard shadows across the grey walls, most of the smoke finding its way through the chimney. He grabbed another log and tossed it into the fiery heart, then sat cross-legged at the pit’s edge and took a deep breath.

He felt the day, a coat of grime across his body, and knew he should bathe before getting too comfortable, but the long hours hunting paired with his minimal kill had zapped his body of any excess energy. He closed his eyes for a moment, let the heat from the fire exacerbate every drop of sweat and the blood still caked between his nails, then took another breath and forced himself to stand.

He grabbed his gloves - precaution, always - and made for the antechamber. There was a creek five minutes downhill, and the cold water would at least wake him up enough to get clean.

*

All year round, it was hot in the mountains. _Hot everywhere_ , Derek reminded himself, as the short walk from cave to creek forced a new round of sweat from his skin. Bombs from the war had permanently damaged the atmosphere - or at least sped up the process, his mother had always said - and stories of snow, passed from his great-grandparents to their children to theirs, were just that: beautiful figments. He couldn’t imagine a sky so white that frozen bits of it collapsed away, or a forest where plants stood petrified in ice instead of morning dew.

He reached the creek, stripped away his belt and leather pants, and waded completely in before his body could protest the sudden cold. It hurt for a moment, a few haggard breaths, but then he felt the first layers of grit sluice off in the light current, and everything slowed to a peaceful calm. He plunged his head beneath the surface, emerged straight away and scrubbed his nails across his scalp. Some of the memories, the old aches and flashes of pain, had been sedated by the water’s tug, and he gave himself to the brief reprieve of well-earned peace.

Until a scream cut the air, and he realized all at once that he was naked, vulnerable, out in plain sight. He half-waded, half-ran from the water, pulled his pants and buckled his belt, and had the gloves on when a second scream followed the first. It had come from farther downhill, to his right.

Derek knocked the gloves against his sides, hitting the activation plates, and ten steel claws slid out from the fingertips. He flexed them, gathered himself, and struck out towards the noise.

*

His heartbeat raged, telling him to race for whoever was in trouble, but he had a hunter’s mind and it knew the danger of too much noise. He slinked from tree to tree, eyes peeled and ears wide for any sign of whoever had screamed. The ground was loose here, more stone than earth, and the trees were stragglers whose stunted trunks provided far less cover than Derek preferred. But he used them as best he could, and tried to keep his feet from dislodging miniature landslides.

A third scream, and Derek recognized now the rage behind the fear. Whoever it was up ahead, they weren’t running to prolong their life. They were fighting to protect it.

He came to the edge of a small cliff - more a hillock with eighty-degree slopes on either side - and knew from the last scream that he had to be nearly on top of his quarry, but the slanted ground ahead was empty. All over his body tensed, fear roiling up from those dormant ravines he’d never managed to close entirely; what if someone had died fighting, and he hadn’t been quick enough to save them?

But then someone swore, directly below the hillock, and he pushed himself out to gaze beneath its overhang.

A boy was crouched against the cliff face, and a mech was closing in on him. Derek recognized the Hunter model, the same type that’d tracked him and Cora and Peter ten years ago: the size of an average adult, metal back rounded like an insect carapace, arms ending in three-foot blades that slanted like giant scimitars. The boy was bleeding, cuts all across his bare chest, and it looked like his last line of defense was those skinny, raised arms.

Derek was stunned a moment too long, watching as the Hunter swung its blade in a quick, precise arc. Steel dug into the boy’s forearm, but he didn’t scream this time. He only stared, face paralyzed mid-grimace, then collapsed.

Derek’s instincts rushed back to him. He grabbed the edge of the cliff, kicked himself out to flip over its ledge, then let his grip go and fell through the air, claws extended. His feet collided with the mech’s back, pushing it into the ground, and with the same momentum his claws fell forward, slicing into its gearbox skull. The mech rattled, sparks flying from the joint where head and neck met, but then it was still and Derek was up.

He removed his gloves and clipped them to his belt, then knelt over the boy and pressed his fingers to the pale, smattered neck. A butterfly pulse beat faint beneath the skin.

Panic threatened to overtake his adrenaline, but he breathed and assessed the wounds he could see: the freshly-cut arm was the worst, bone visible through the sluggish flow of blood, and a second deep cut decorated the boy’s shoulder. Derek lifted his good arm, testing the boy’s weight, and spotted a drawstring pack half-buried beneath the limp body. It was leather, sturdy and basic and filled to bursting. Derek tied it beside his gloves, then crouched and slid the boy carefully onto his own back. He was nearly as light as the fawn.

Hooking his arms beneath the boy’s thighs, Derek stood but stayed bent forward, so his passenger wouldn’t slip back or fall sideways. The journey home was all uphill, but Vita-Vials waited in the caves, and Derek knew his body could take it. He wasn’t going to fail this boy. He wasn’t going to let death back into his life, not again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a scatterbrained writer, but publishing this guy is a promise that I'll force myself to finish it! If you've made it to the end of Chapter One, thank you so much for your time. Expecting Chapter Two to be up in three-four days' time!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the reads / kudos <3 If you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to send them my way!
> 
> Decided to add some very minor cross-pollination with _Lord of the Rings_ , because why not! Tried to pick a precise but dramatic color to describe Stiles' eyes, and eventually just went with "amber" because I like the way it sounds over "light brown."

*******

Derek fell to his knees in front of the fire pit, and moved the boy gently as he could onto the floor. He didn’t waste time checking for a pulse again, but made straight for Cora’s room, down the right path off the antechamber’s hallway; the Vita-Vials were there, too precious to throw away, but stashed alongside the rest of his neglected memories for their having failed to save his sister.

Light forced itself through small holes in the ceiling, catching random objects amongst the piled detritus. He passed the motorcycle, Cora’s own collection of furs, and finally came to a container whose lid he unlatched and threw aside. A leather vest was folded on top, and beneath it an assortment of worn cotton shirts. He searched each one, thoroughly despite his hammering heart, and had tossed five to the ground when at last he felt cylindrical outlines through the sixth.

He lifted the fabric and there they were: four syringes, safety caps all intact and green light shining from the inside out.

He ran from the cavern - Vials gripped tight in his hand - down the left hallway and back to the fire. He popped the safety off a syringe, braced his hand on the floor, then drove it against the boy’s upper thigh and heard the spring release. Derek held his breath but counted to himself: _one, two, three, four…_

Ten seconds, and he dropped the spent syringe to massage his thumb against the injection site. He looked at the boy’s arm, coated in blood, but already the decimated flesh had begun to mend itself - pale worms, knitting and overlapping until a fresh scar was all that remained. The rest of his injuries had healed similarly.

Derek moved his gaze from the scars to the boy’s face. His skin was white and his eyes were closed, but he took a small breath and followed up with the quietest groan. He was going to survive.

*

He didn’t want to leave the boy unconscious and alone, but their only water was Derek’s half-full canteen. After pouring half those contents against the boy’s lips - most of it trickling down the sides of his face, but he swallowed a few mouthfuls - he sped to the creek and back with two metal buckets, then wet a square of textured cloth and began to wipe down the boy’s filthy skin.

He was pale still, but cleaned of blood and the stains of the forest looked even closer to health. The arms that Derek had first thought meager were just that, but muscles dominated what little substance there was: lean beneath smooth skin. Unevenly cropped, the boy’s hair was beginning to grow back in patches that stuck crookedly out. His pants were machine-made and looked new, leather with meshed netting stitched down the sides for extra ventilation; he was either from a colony, or a scavenger fresh out the city.

Derek remembered the pack tied to his belt, and moved a few feet off to search through it. Now that his guest was out of immediate danger, Derek had to know why a mech had been chasing him down - if there were more Hunters, scouring the forest for their missing prey. He loosed the drawstring and found a mess of items, crammed against one another in no particular pattern. He began to lay them in a line on the floor.

First was a Vita-Vial, the only one there but still unused. Next were two more pairs of the meshed pants, equally new as the first. He opened a metal canister and found six square loaves of Lembas; the wafer-like bread had been designed during the war for soldiers’ rations, filled with vitamins and a chemical blend that tricked empty stomachs into feeling full. Then there was a pair of BlueBuds, wireless earbuds that could pick up music from a synced device. Cora had owned a pair, deserted now with the rest of her things.

He pulled out a hilt to a plasma dagger, and hit the battery button on its side to see there was less than a third of its power left. He’d keep the weapon for now, until he knew more about the boy. Next was a watch, also turned off; its miniature computer screen was blank and reflected Derek’s frown. Following that was a flask, rusted at the corners but nearly full with whiskey. He recognized the drink from when his family had still lived on the city outskirts - Peter had occasionally found a bottle, and sat drinking it while staring at the sunlit silhouettes of collapsed skyscrapers.

Last from the pack was a metal headband, that curved in the front to form a centered diamond. In the middle of the diamond was a circular pane of red glass, behind which Derek could see a maze of circuitry. The whole thing looked familiar, but he couldn’t place from where or find a switch to turn it on. The watch probably controlled it, as it likely did the BlueBuds.

Clipping the dagger beside his gloves, he folded the pants and neatly replaced everything else in the pack. The headband was strange but gave no indication that the boy was dangerous, so he needn’t be wary just yet, and if the boy turned out angry that his things had been searched, it wasn’t Derek’s problem. Courtesy had no place in survival.

*

It wasn’t much later when the boy woke and tried to sit up. Derek was there to steady him.

“Move slowly,” he said, surprised for a moment by the sound of his own voice. How long had it been since he’d spoken last?

The boy blinked a few times before his eyes focused on Derek. Then they looked sideways, sluggish still, to Derek’s hand resting on his shoulder. His own fingers scrabbled on the floor, searching for the plasma dagger, Derek guessed.

“Where am I?” he said, voice light with an overlapping husk.

“The woods,” Derek replied, then thought on the vagueness of it and added, “in my home. You’re safe here.”

The boy was shaking, and took deep breaths as he sat farther up on his elbows. Derek watched him take in the cave, the fire, the angriest of his scars, and finally those amber eyes returned to Derek and narrowed ever slightly. “Where’s my pack?”

“It’s here.” Derek lifted the bag from beside his leg and passed it over. “I have your knife. We don’t know each other.”

That seemed a satisfactory explanation, because the boy nodded curtly and rifled through the rest of his things. He gave a small relieved sigh when he lifted the headband from the bottom of the pack, but then he was turned facing Derek again, and any semblance of being disoriented was gone from his expression.

“The mech that was after me?”

“I stopped it.”

“And you’re not a slaver?”

Derek couldn’t see a connection between the two questions, but looked around the cavern and shrugged as if to say _Do I look like one?_

The boy’s shoulders fell, and he looked at ease but exhausted still. One arm held the pack to his chest, and the other twitched with the effort of supporting himself. Derek was reminded of Cora, on days when they’d faced an excruciating hunt, and suddenly felt his own need to recuperate from the last few hours.

“You need to rest more?” he said, standing up.

“Yeah, I think I do.” The boy tracked his movement but stayed sitting.

“There are furs if you need them.” Derek indicated the pile by the fire. He crossed the cave to the far center tunnel, down which his neglected sleeping nook waited, and turned to find the boy still staring at him. “I’m Derek, alright?”

“I’m Stiles.” The boy's lips twitched, halfway to a smile, maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure yet what the timetable on chapters is going to be, but going to try my best to keep it rollin! Thank you so much again for your time, and for reading through!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live upstate and there are plenty of deer around, but my only experience with carving one for food is that episode of _Game of Thrones_ where Tywin Lannister gets introduced, so heads up on any faulty descriptions!
> 
> Always open to criticism / suggestions. Wrote most of this chapter to "Bite" by Troye Sivan, because it's wonderful and fit in with the playlist I'm puttin together.

*******

The following morning, Derek found Stiles in the antechamber, sitting cross-legged on the floor and facing the cave entrance. The wood axe rested by his side.

“You live alone here,” Stiles said without turning. Derek sat beside him, watched the early rays of sunlight steal themselves through breaks in the curtain of roots that kept them hidden.

“How are you feeling?” Derek said. Moisture was already gathering on his forehead, beneath his arms; the woods would be a furnace, come midday.

“I feel disgusting.” His tone was conversational, matter-of-fact. He side-eyed Derek and continued with the same plain sincerity: “But I’m alive, and I’m grateful. I shouldn’t need more than a day to rest, then I’ll move on and let you be.”

“Take the time you need,” Derek said, standing and stretching his arms to the ceiling. He could chastise himself for leaving the axe out last night, but at least it’d proved that Stiles wasn’t going to stab him in the back, and if he needed a few days to recuperate, then Derek hadn’t saved him to force him straight back out. He had his own food - he wouldn’t be a burden.

Derek made for the main cavern, where he’d left the water buckets yesterday, and heard Stiles fumbling to follow. Once there, Stiles walked to his pack and withdrew the single Vita-Vial. He held it out to Derek, who raised his eyebrows.

“There’ll never be more of these,” he said, holding Derek’s gaze. “You used one to save me, so take it.”

“I haven’t needed them in years,” Derek said, and if he was angry it was only for being reminded of Cora. He cleared his throat, tried to chase the gruff away, and bent to grab the buckets.

“Then let me help you.” Stiles was against him then, his long fingers muzzling one of the buckets from Derek’s grasp. Derek startled at the contact; he took a step back and met Stiles’ petulant stare, which mirrored the honesty that pervaded his voice. “I can carry water, and forage if you need me to.”

Stiles hated the idea of being in debt, Derek could tell and understood. It didn’t change the fact that he’d been far easier to handle unconscious. Derek had bathed him, carried him bleeding for the better part of a mile, but Stiles wide awake and wired seemed persistent to prove that Derek had forgotten what it was like to be around another human, these past two years. Two years now, living without Cora.

He took a steadying breath.

“I’ll show you where the creek is, alright?” he said. Stiles nodded and straightened his back, then held his hand out for the second bucket. Derek passed it over and led the way from the cave.

*

The sun was no higher than nine in the sky when they reached the creek, but Derek was sweating and couldn’t imagine Stiles fairing better. Stiles placed the buckets a bit uphill, then walked to the water’s edge and looked to Derek. “I’m filthy,” he said, a question hidden somewhere in the words.

Derek shrugged. “Get clean?”

Stiles cocked his head slightly, then turned back to the water and stripped his pants away. Derek realized what the question had been.

He wasn’t a stranger to nudity. Neither he nor Cora had ever been shy, and the sweltering climate allowed minimal clothing to begin with, but Stiles was the first person outside of his family Derek had ever seen completely bare. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but curious to compare how thin Stiles was against his own thicker frame, how his back curved with an elegance Derek had previously reserved for the women he’d known; Stiles’ legs were defined in the same fashion as his arms, muscles strange protrusions against the scant surrounding framework.

When Stiles turned into the current, scouring off the blood his pants had previously covered, Derek saw the hair that bristled suddenly just below his navel and spread in dark lines down his inner thighs. Derek’s stomach clenched: not unwelcome, just unexpected. He pushed it away and went to get the buckets.

When they were full and Derek had turned to start back towards home, Stiles called after him.

“I can carry those,” he said, splashing from the water. He grabbed his pants along the way but tossed them over his shoulder instead of putting them back on, then took the water from Derek and stood - naked, dripping - awaiting farther direction. “What next?”

“We boil half for drinking, and leave the rest for cleaning.” Derek felt a bit outside himself, trying to uncoil the part of his mind that appreciated Stiles’ sleek form. When Stiles took the lead uphill, familiar now with their path to the caves, Derek alternated glaring at the ground and the view before him.

*

Once they’d divided half the water into steel bottles and nestled them round the fire’s final embers, Stiles - dry, it seemed at last - donned another pair of pants, hopping to force the last few leather inches over his hips.

“Your jaw’s broken,” he said to Derek, who immediately closed his mouth and silently motioned for them to leave the cave again.

The next hour they spent checking Derek’s traps, looping a wide circle round the caves, and then he showed Stiles where the berries grew thickest, so he could forage while Derek took his bow and tracked a set of prints they’d earlier encountered: the second fawn, he thought, confused and wandering without its brother. Before they’d parted ways, Stiles had asked for his plasma dagger back, and Derek had obliged. There hadn’t been a sign of mechs, but he wanted the boy to feel safe regardless.

*

Noon. The fawn was dead weight, jostling pathetically as Derek marched forward, and how was it only yesterday he’d been in this exact situation, hours away from encountering Stiles and the Hunter?

He found Stiles spread out on the main cave’s floor, flanked by the buckets now filled with blackberries. He sat up when Derek came into view, eyes glued to the fawn as Derek passed and walked for the slaughter cavern. A second later he heard Stiles stand and follow.

A curtain of reeds marked the halfway point down the hallway that led to the slaughter room, and a second curtain hung just before the cavern itself. They kept the smell condensed in one place - putrefying - but that was the point; the bears in the woods were fearful more than anything, but Derek wasn’t going to tempt them here with the obvious stench of fresh meat.

He spread the fawn on a slab of flat stone and set to work. Stiles watched from the corner, quiet through the skinning process; when Derek switched from knife to cleaver, and hacked the first leg off with an echoing crunch, he spoke.

“How long have you been here?” Stiles asked.

“Ten years, I think.” The truth was that Cora had always kept the date, obsessed with a calendar she’d found on one of her scavenging trips - each month plastered with the picture of a different animal - and since she’d died, the seasons’ shifts had proved so imperceptible that Derek could only estimate how long he’d been alone. That hadn’t been the question though, had it?

He chopped the next two legs away.

“It wasn’t always just you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The room that’s filled with everything.” Cora’s room, he meant. “Most of it’s covered in dust. It’s nothing you need, but you can’t get rid of it either.”

“Went through everything while you had the place to yourself?”

“I didn’t open anything. Just looked around a bit.”

“What were you doing in my woods?” Derek knew the way he sounded. He couldn’t own the mountainside, or expect every lone wanderer to appreciate invisible turf lines, but in all the time he and Cora had lived here, no one had ever passed through. A group of settlers had tried to build a town once, about fifty miles south, but Cora’d returned from a trading trip to report the whole place had burnt to the ground: slavers, most likely. No one explored the woods on a whim, especially a colony kid, if that’s what Stiles was.

The opposite of abashed or offended at Derek’s tone, Stiles answered with frankness. “There’s a town of wind farmers, eighty miles northwest of here. That’s my home. We send out scouts once a year, to see if anyone else has tried settling the area. I volunteered to go this time.”

Wind farmers: scientists, if the term applied to anyone post-war. They used old technology to build giant mills and generate electricity, powering towns that supposedly had protective walls and schools and farms. Derek’s mother had always talked about finding one, if she could just coax his father and Uncle Peter away from the city remnants.

Derek traveled, sometimes for days in a certain direction, but had never been far enough northwest to dispute Stiles’ claim. Was it possible that his mother’s dream had been so close all along, less than a week’s steady journey from the woods?

“Your scouts always come this far south? I’ve never seen one of them before.”

“Not usually, no.” Stiles stared at the bloodstained floor. “But I’ve been saying for years that we should go farther - another colony would mean trade, or fair warning if the slavers ever got too close. The rest of my group turned back two days ago, but I kept searching.”

“And just stumbled across a Hunter?”

“Yes.” Stiles glared at Derek, more with the pride of his own honesty than anger. It wasn’t implausible that he’d passed through the sensor radius of an abandoned mech; they’d stay frozen indefinitely if nothing stumbled across their radar.

Maybe Derek just couldn’t accept that another human was here in his home. How much of himself had he lost touch with, these past two years of hermitage?

“I believe you,” he said, and meant it. What reason could Stiles have to lie? “And there aren’t any towns I know of, but at least you can tell your people about the reclusive hunter.”

“I can tell them that you saved me,” Stiles said.

Neither of them spoke again, while Derek finished carving the fawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is turning into way more of a slow burn than I expected, but Chapter Four's finally going to get the ball rolling (fingers crossed) - it should also explain the story's title!  
> 
> 
> Thanks for reading through, and all my full-moon love to you <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOAH!
> 
> Major hiatus, but it's back! To anyone that previously invested their time, thank you so much for being patient with me <3 I hate to leave things unfinished, and am so excited to have this chapter up, even if my posting timeline's still wonky.
> 
> To any new faces, ten thousand werewolf hugs for your interest. I never go long without reading new fics, and it's something to be cherished, that people come together over a piece of art they all love to the point that it inspires new creation.
> 
> I thought this chapter would kick the plot up (and explain the story's title), but it looks like Five is gonna be the one! Always, always thank you for your time, and don't ever hesitate to throw any critiques / suggestions my way. Blessed be, you lovely souls.

*******

Together they carried the wrapped parcels to the meat locker, and on their way back Derek stopped in the archway of Cora’s room. Stiles noticed and moved to stand beside him.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Derek said, but his stomach was tugging him into the cave. He’d come here out of necessity yesterday, to find the Vita-Vials. Now something tight in his chest was moving his legs, and the first deep breath of dusty air he took amplified a sudden headache, just between his eyes.

He moved to a crate, behind which the motorcycle was propped, and opened it. A folded quilt rested on top: fabric faded, patterned diamonds that were probably blue once. It was heavy though, when Derek lifted it, sturdy and well-constructed. He remembered the day Cora’d brought it home, describing a house she’d found mostly intact at the foot of the mountain. Along with the quilt, she’d picked up a set of kitchen knives, a fire poker, and a small ceramic statue whose cherub face was only partially cracked - things that were old, even before the war.

He pressed his nose to the fabric, but only smelled stale fibers. Had Cora ever used this, or just kept it as a memento of some world she’d never known? A peaceful world, where quilts and statues mattered?

“Could you use this?” Derek said, holding the blanket towards Stiles without looking at it. “Or anyone in your town?”

“Maybe.” Stiles took the quilt, and Derek glanced over to see him splay a hand over the folded line of diamonds. He looked at it gently, eyes betraying some love for the impractical remnant, just like Cora would have. “You don’t want it anymore?”

“No.” Derek returned to the crate, and there it was - the angel statuette. Cora must have placed it beneath the quilt to keep it safe, but its face had caved in anyway, ceramic curls haloed by dust. “Help me look through some of these? There’s plenty here I don’t need anymore.”

*

An hour later, Derek had fully packed a crate with items he thought a colony would appreciate, and filled two more with objects he couldn’t think of any use for and planned to toss or burn if possible. It hadn’t come up yet how Stiles would transport the goods - eighty-seven miles, part of it mountainous - but Derek’s eyes kept coming back to the motorcycle. He tried to ignore the idea, simmering behind his headache.

Stiles hadn’t asked for anything specific, just rummaged quietly, but every few minutes he’d pick something from a crate and hold it appreciatively before returning it. Derek had noted most of the items: a metal bat, an old handheld gaming console, a children’s book in surprisingly good shape. He’d put them all in the colony box once his own sorting fever had cleared a bit.

“These are in good shape,” Stiles said, and Derek saw him holding a pair of BlueBuds. “You never use these.”

“They were my sister’s.”

“You’d need a watch, or an iPod. Something with music on it.” Stiles rolled the earbuds from hand to hand, then looked up and scrutinized Derek with his sharp, honest eyes. That impassive mouth quirked at the corner, a rare half-smile, and Stiles walked over to him. “Let’s take a break. Let me play you something.”

“Those won’t have any charge left.”

“And you don’t have a power cell.”

It wasn’t a question, but Derek still had an answer. “No, I don’t.”

Power cells were common knowledge: the charge of infinite batteries, condensed into a single sphere. They’d been perfected and produced ten years before the war began, and Derek’s mother had always said that the technology’d allowed different militaries to give mechs their near-endless stores of energy. His father and Peter had been obsessed with finding one, a defining reason they’d risked living so close to the city.

Cora’d inherited a lesser shade of it, collecting gadgets in the hope she’d someday find a cell, but like her father and uncle had never succeeded.

“That’s alright.” Stiles’ voice snapped Derek from his reverie. “Mine still have some charge left.”

The smile was gone, but Stiles’ eyes held that precocious spark his lips had a moment before. He nodded towards the exit and began to walk. Derek spared the crates he’d condensed a final once-over before following; he’d come back to them later.

*

The main cavern. Stiles pulled his watch and BlueBuds from his pack, then sat swiping at the watch’s screen. Derek assumed he was looking for a song, and set to starting a fire while he waited. When he’d built the kindling into a pyramid and filled the gaps with dry grass and stray chips, headache finally fading away, Stiles gave a triumphant grunt.

“This one’s perfect,” he said, waving the watch.

“Just a minute,” Derek replied, grabbing flint and stone from beside the woodpile. When the grass had caught, and flames began to curl the kindling’s protruding splinters, he gave Stiles his full attention.

Stiles handed him a BlueBud and said, “For your right ear.”

He fit it into place, feeling just as strange as the one time Cora’d convinced him to give her favorite song a try. He hadn’t liked it, but maybe Stiles’ taste would help.

The half-smile was back, and Stiles put the left bud in his own ear before hitting something on the watch. A second later, heavy drumbeats pulsed through Derek’s skull, followed by a man’s crooning voice that sounded half-robotic over the synthesized beat:

_This is gosepl, for the fallen ones - locked away in permanent slumber_

Derek’s forehead creased. It wasn’t bad: a little loud, definitely excessive, but the energy was nice. He watched Stiles lean back, start to nod his head in time. Derek’s face had just relaxed, the rest of his body following suit, when the chorus came in- 

_These words are knives and often leave scars, the fear of falling apart_

-and fury broke through him. He couldn’t pinpoint what had made him so angry: the lyrics, or the carefree tone of the music beside them. In the few moments before the second verse came in, he decided it was the idea that anything pre-war could have inspired terror, or absolute fear. He wondered if the boy singing had watched his entire family die, one by one.

He took the BlueBud out.

“You don’t like it,” Stiles said, fingers moving along the watch. Derek heard the music cut out.

“Just not used to it.” He felt stiff, needed to move. The fire wasn’t strong enough to add a log, they’d already finished with the fawn. The song had set him boiling, and he clenched his fingers, slowly in and out of fists.

“Calm down for a second.” Stiles’ voice sounded far off, beyond the ringing of his ears.

“Hm?”

“Derek, you need to calm down. Just for a second.” It was the first time he’d used Derek’s name, in that ever-calm voice of his. Derek looked up, and Stiles’ lips were pressed together, eyes wide with an understanding that shouldn’t seem warranted but did. “You want to breathe for a second, or count with me?”

“No.” Derek shook his hands out instead, and took a deep breath. He felt lighter afterwards, ears returning to their normal frequency. He hadn’t come that close to a panic attack since the nights after Cora’d died. He breathed again, leaning his head into his hands.

“I get them too sometimes,” Stiles said, and Derek kept his gaze on the floor. “When I think about how breakable we are, compared to the way people used to be.”

“I don’t care about the way things used to be.” He’d spoken without thinking, trapped in an echo of that numb interim that always follows being emotionally wrung. His forearms felt asleep, and soon he knew the shame would come - for letting a song upset him so, for lashing out at Stiles.

“I know you don’t. It’s different for everyone.” Derek heard him scooting closer. “Sometimes it’s when I think about my mom.”

Now it seemed Derek’s turn had come to ask an obvious question. “She died?”

“When I was younger, yeah. Something a Vita-Vial couldn’t fix. No one had a name for it, but it was like she corroded from the inside out. It came on fast, but lasted a long time. Too long, honestly.” Stiles exhaled, and from the shuffling must have moved back onto his elbows, beside Derek. “We die so fast, so frequently, whether it’s from mechs or slavers or an accident. It isn’t fair for someone to be alive and safe, just to be crippled, incapable of using their time.”

What Derek had taken for honesty in Stiles, he suddenly recognized as shrewdness. He looked sideways then, to the blank acceptance on Stiles’ face, and maybe a colony had pampered his childhood - erased the possibility of seeing half a dozen people slaughtered, at once - but Derek saw and heard now the deadened ideals of a survivor, the simultaneous fire and void he’d been too blind to accept from the first time he’d seen Stiles, animal-instinct against the Hunter.

They were the same, huddled beside a fire at the end of humanity’s days: alive, and empty.

He felt more alone with the revelation than before he’d even met Stiles.

Stiles was up, breaking the quiet again with his electric movements. He went for his pack, rummaged and pulled out the flask of whiskey. He stared at Derek, silent, fire-shadow contorting his suggestive expression into a leer.

“No,” Derek said, standing himself to strengthen the proclamation.

“I’ve never known two people more that need a drink.” Stiles moved forward, into complete light, and the leer vanished, making him look more an imp than a devil: dangerous still, but far less threatening.

“Too much could go wrong. We need to be cautious, always.” The truth, but Derek was glad to avoid admitting he’d never tasted alcohol. Peter had offered, two or three times, but his forlorn demeanor and occasionally cruel snipes had always influenced Derek’s _no_.

Stiles huffed, an aggrieved but playful pout of his shoulders. He practically sauntered up to Derek, the survivalist replaced by something emotional: a spark. Were both of them masks, or simultaneously true, somehow?

“You saved my life, Derek.” The sincerity was back, roguish undertones beneath as Stiles brandished the flask like a lifeline. “Let me do the same for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this pretty much turns into a circle jerk for the Top 25 Most Played songs on my iPod?
> 
> Praise the starry sky for Brendon and Panic's new album on its way. I can't even count the number of times I've danced to that song in front of the bathroom mirror, like the ten year old girl I really am.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLOT FINALLY (sort of).

***

He remembered bathing in the creek, just over a day ago: how the water had caught and collapsed the dirt of an average day, the traumas of an abnormal past. He’d cleansed himself from the outside in.

The whiskey was a reversal, gradual warmth that blossomed and scoured - his throat and chest at first, but fifteen minutes past the first drink and his head was starting to accept the soothing buzz.

“It feels strange,” he said to Stiles, who held the flask in one hand and a log in the other. He tossed it onto the fire pit, scattering an ember-cloud, then raised an eyebrow at Derek.

“Good or bad strange?”

“Just strange.” Like he was clay, and whatever emotional step he took first would set the alcohol’s course in molding him.

Stiles took a second drink, longer than his first, then held the flask to Derek, who accepted. He looked at the new log, a plume of orange and red already, then to the tunnel that led to the antechamber. _Empty_ , he’d thought: automatons disguised by human skin. If survival was its own purpose and justification, its _only_ justification, what was he risking by flaunting that safety? A quilted blanket, a cave full of painful memories?

He took a second sip, and a third unrestrained one straight after.

Stiles’ fingers, firm and swift as they lifted the flask away. Derek glared, but instead of petulant, Stiles gave a small smile, quiet and empathetic. The alcohol twisted, promising to violently chisel Derek’s mind in the face of pity like that.

“Give it a minute to settle,” Stiles said, screwing the cap back over the whiskey. He slipped it into a pocket, then stretched his arms to the ceiling - fire outlining each lean contour - and the violence turned to volatile hunger, whiplash in Derek’s gut, so he sat down again and angled himself away: stunted that train of thought at the nape.

Stiles walked the edge of the cave, humming to himself and intermittently stretching his legs. He came back to the fire, nestling beside Derek with a heavy sigh, and they spent a few silent minutes letting the whiskey steep, amicable if not for the energy slithering through Derek’s limbs, directionless still.

“I’m sorry for the song,” Stiles said.

“You shouldn’t be.” Derek’s past had soured the music, not Stiles’ enthusiasm.

“Sorry from a distance, not personally.” He was leaning back towards the fire, neck arched with sweat beginning to pop across his Adam’s apple. “I don’t feel guilty, but you saved me yesterday - I don’t want to see you upset.”

And there it was: grateful because a human could never completely discard those emotions, but withdrawn and crude because that’s what it took to keep yourself alive. Derek didn’t feel the need to respond.

Ten minutes maybe, and Stiles offered the flask again. Derek drank deep, returned it, didn’t notice whether or not Stiles kept up. The anger was still vying to claim his puppet emotions, but the longer his stomach stewed with whiskey, the more serene he felt. Sad, but serene: a foil to his fury against his barebones life.

“My parents ran our community. Dad policed the walls, Mom was a sort of mayor, before she got sick. Her leadership, it was organic - people loved her.” Stiles was smirking, at his own nostalgia or the possibility of love, Derek couldn’t tell. “I forget who started it, but people started bringing her CDs and BlueBuds and old iPods they’d found, like tribute. She loved music, and once people realized it her collection only grew. That’s why it’s special to me, still.”

Stiles’ appreciation of music, the way he’d coddled those items in Cora’s room. Derek wondered if he realized how conflicted he appeared, the child that fondled picture books and faced down mechs with blind determination. But Derek was the one observing, drawing conclusions. Maybe his anger was simple, grown from the fact that he wasn’t comfortable around people anymore, and he said as much.

“I don’t know how to have you here. My sister died two years ago and you remind me of her.”

“That’s fair,” Stiles mumbled, and then his shoulder was against Derek’s, heat of the fire and skin combined. He must have assumed from Cora’s things that Derek hadn’t always been alone, but if the specific admittance of a sister surprised him, he gave no hint of it.

“I don’t know if I can handle you touching me, either.”

Stiles laughed, a deep, stilted sound. He shifted his weight from Derek’s side, then stood. His eyes were glazed, rooted earth reflected through the sheen of how Derek dreamt ice might appear. Subtle amusement gave way to determination on Stiles’ face, and he looked at Derek like he’d accepted a challenge.

“I want you to listen to another song. I won’t force you, though.”

Derek took a deep breath, exhaled through his nose. The surprise of that first song had driven him to panic, and he couldn’t imagine being taken twice, but his brain was swimming and he’d never felt so cautious, so reckless. He hefted himself to his feet, tried to gather his balance like it meant something.

“Nothing cheerful,” he said, because another cavalier chorus would only tempt the anger back.

Stiles laughed again, pulling the BlueBuds from his pocket and swiping his watch awake. “Nothing cheerful, I promise.” He handed the right earbud over.

Derek placed it in, watched Stiles immediately find the song, and heard metallic notes flit over a deep beat. A girls’ voice swelled, repeating the same two words over and over before cutting off. The first verse began:

_I’ve been watching your kindness keep a - lonely company, look at the fire and think of me_

Stiles smiled at “fire,” eyes closed. He swayed closer to Derek, who’d instantly sunk into the sedate melody. His brow furrowed, his shoulders twitched.

_I’ve been watching you creep around my wandering feet, trying for years to flee_

Stiles began to sing beneath his breath, eyes opening as his hands extended and hovered just above Derek’s hips. His face turned up, seeking invitation, and Derek couldn’t nod, couldn’t speak, but his lips fell open the slightest bit and that must have been confirmation enough. Stiles wrapped one hand around his waist, and used the other to raise Derek’s own hand; he nuzzled into Derek’s open palm, eyes fluttering now.

“You’ll be the moon, I’ll be the earth, and when we burst-”

Derek’s free hand instinctively went to the small of Stiles’ back, pulled him just close enough for them to sway together, Stiles’ voice a chorus of breaths ghosting down his arm.

“-start over, oh darling, begin again, begin again, begin again.”

_You’ll be the moon, I’ll be the earth, and when we burst - start over, oh darling, begin again, begin again, begin again_

The singing fell away, the beat surged into a second wave of metallic harmony. They were closer, bare chests flush and heat-slick - Stiles’ doing - and when the verse came back, Stiles was whispering straight beside his ear: “My moon, oh my moon…”

They’d moved a few steps sideways, nearer the woodpile. Derek’s grip tightened, half at least his own volition, and when he felt lips pressed to the underside of his jaw, just over the pulse of his neck, he was willing to embrace the mask of Stiles’ emotion as genuine.

Stiles pulled back, an instant movement that left the air empty, Derek reeling. His vision blurred, he threw a hand out to balance himself against the cave wall. Still the music pulsed through his skull: _begin again, begin again, begin again_.

His gaze steadied but his body still shook from the sudden loss of equilibrium. He searched for Stiles, caught the grim set of his mouth at first, but then his eyes fell to the boy’s hand and the wood axe he held with a steady grip.

Derek couldn’t move, couldn’t think to move his mind was so shaken. Stiles hefted the axe, swung the handle sideways into Derek’s skull.

The world went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've never listened to Purity Ring - especially "Begin Again" - I can one hundred percent wholeheartedly recommend it. Closing in on a thousand listens of "Begin Again," and all of their music is just so wonderful.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your time and encouragement, hope the winter season and any / all of its holidays are treating you beautifully <3
> 
> PS If you've played _Enslaved_ you probably know what's coming, it just took me five chapters to get where the game managed in an introduction O__o


End file.
